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If you work in a startup, it will bite you during due diligence when a potential acquirer is evaluating your intellectual property. I would give the AGPL a wide
by fmajid 7y ago
If you work in a startup, it will bite you during due diligence when a potential acquirer is evaluating your intellectual property. I would give the AGPL a wide berth.
- giancarlostoro 7y agoThis is why I avoid AGPL projects for potential ideas / side projects that could potentially turn useful.
- tptacek 7y agoYou avoid using it, or avoid using third party code that uses it? The latter makes sense. The former does not, as you can relicense any time you want.
- ymse 7y agoOnly if you are the sole copyright holder, i.e. no (nontrivial) external contributions.
- giancarlostoro 7y agoWhich is why I avoid it directly, unless I'm not touching the code at all. If I'm just using it as-is, then I don't care.
- lucasyvas 7y agoYou can always change the license.
- flynnsdeadman 7y agoexcept you cannot, once its AGPL youre stuck with it
- pmontra 7y agoIf you're the owner of the code, all the past versions of the project are and will be AGPL forever (or MIT, or BSD) but all the new versions will be whatever you want. You can also dual license. If someone forks the old AGPL version (or MIT, or BSD) they can keep that license on the fork, but they can't use your new code.
- zwily 7y agoYes, this is why so many projects have Contributor License Agreements - so the project owner can relicense at will. It’s also why you shouldn’t sign a CLA if you disagree with that possibility.